Ben it was who found them, whimpering and circling the freshly turned sods like he was shepherding our black Welsh Mountains. .. sheep that is. The slope in that field is treacherous for a tractor. Ben was my rescue service in case I turned turtle.
Thinking it over, leaving it to the last of the day was foolhardy after 10 hours ploughing. But I can’t resist the evening light slanting over the hedges, particularly after an electrical storm, with the brown damp smell of the land and the sun catching the earth’s drops of moisture, throwing it back in rainbow jewels.
Dad had always said that this field held more promise than being left to lie fallow. Just plough a portion of the field and across the slope so that the ridges would make the water “walk off not run off”- another from Dad’s tomes of witty farming wisdom. That way you stopped all the richness of the top soil cascading down to gather at the slope bottom. What’s more Mystic Meg had this morning pronounced that today would be “a day to remember…. when all your dreams come true.” A pot of gold at the rainbow’s end will do me I thought.
The decision was made. After the rain stopped, dividing the field into a rough nine equal parts, we started on the exact central 5th segment. I saw the rainbow’s end but not the boulder it had targeted. On impact the tractor tipped. I just had time to register a glance from the setting sun charging the objects, – a consistent rosy red rather than the expected full spectrum of Welsh rain.
Ben barked and barked till the Romanian labourers cropping in the next field came over and extracted me from underneath the overturned tractor.
Nine weeks in hospital, then 3 months residential rehab, gave me more than enough time to research. Three Middle Bronze Age twisted gold torques, -chokers to you and me,- probably belonging to a local chieftain, three or four thousand years ago. Incredibly delicate and finely wrought. Of course, it was Treasure Trove; we couldn’t keep our pot of gold
I don’t plough much these days. Manning the field entry-booth for all those metal-detecting -machine toting enthusiasts is good enough for me, and much more financially rewarding than farming. Brexit or No Brexit we are now independent of EU subsidies!
My reading preferences have changed. Mystic Meg is replaced by Treasure Hunting Magazine. Guess we are all looking for a slice of immortality. That’s why they come, hoping to find something and have it named after them. The money and reading the story of the “Cefn Wen Hoard” at The Welsh Museum of National Life is good enough for me. Dad would have liked it too.
Lovely descriptions